May 18th 2023

Acknowledgement of Country

Prayer

A Blessing for Families.

Heavenly Father, please bless our families with Your everlasting love.
Give our families strength to overcome hardship and difficulties.
Give our families courage to admit our faults and forgive others.
Give our families joy to live life to the full and spread our joy to others.
May all families find comfort, support and guidance under Your loving care. 

Amen

https://www.catholiccarevic.org.au/news/247/a-blessing-for-families

This week is National Families Week

Image Happy Family: Luiza Vizoli

A Note from our Principal.

Ngata Families and Friends,

Dear Families,

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend our Mother's Day celebration on Monday. The children appreciate your support. Hopefully those who were unable to attend were able to celebrate on Mother's Day. 

Next week marks the beginning of our enrolment period for 2024. Enrolment tours will be held on Thursday and Friday. Existing families are encouraged to attend. There is nothing like an endorsement from current families to promote our school. Enrolment forms will be available at the tours or please pop into the office if you need one. 

We are all looking forward to Catholic Education Week next week. Families are welcome to join us at Mass on Tuesday, 10am, to mark the occasions. 

Kind regards,

Stacey 

Welcome!

We would like to introduce two new students who have started at St. Pius X this week.  Isali (MP1) and her brother Aaron (Prep) have joined us from Sri Lanka.

We warmly welcome you and your family and we look forward to getting to know you all!

Catholic Education Week

Next week is Catholic Education Week. This is a great opportunity to celebrate Catholic Education and the important role that St Pius X plays in it. 

St Pius X was established by St Joseph’s Parish and the Sisters of Mercy in 1962. These groups had a strong desire to bring Catholic education to West Warrnambool. We are proud to part of a network of schools in the Ballarat Diocese that continue this mission. This is a great opportunity to celebrate our school, our staff and are wider Catholic community. 

We will be celebrating in a number of ways. 

• Mass at St Pius X Church at 10am, Monday 22nd May. All welcome. 
• Staff will be celebrating together.
• Grade 6 students from across our Warrnambool network will be attending Frozen: The Musical, at Emmanuel College on Friday. 

Survey closes May 22nd

The process for appointing an ongoing principal for our school has begun. The advertisement can be found here .

This is coordinated through our governing authority, DOBCEL. An important part of this process is community consultation. A letter from Lee Schlooz follows which outlines this. Please consider providing some feed via the link below. 

Link to feedback survey

2024 Enrolments

We need your help. Please consider doing the following:

• Sharing our promotional video.
• Sharing information about our enrolment tours- ALL FAMILIES WILL HAVE RECEIVED SOME FLYERS. PLEASE PASS THEM ON. 
• Directing people to our website.
• Liking and sharing our social media posts on facebook and instagram
• Bringing someone along to our enrolment tours. 

Help us to spread the word.

Existing families are highly encouraged to attend. New parents always appreciate hearing about the experience of those that are already a part of our school community. 

Enrolments for 2024 - Current Families

We now invite current families only to login via our school website to complete the enrolment form for any 2024 Foundation students. Enrolments for all other Foundation families will open on May 22, 2023.

Online enrolments are now available and can be completed and submitted electronically. 

For this process go to our school website and select the Enrolment tab. Complete the Enrolment Enquiry to add your details for reminders and updates.  

Under the Enrolment Tab you will also notice an Online Enrolment Form - select this and away you go. A tip with this one is do not use a phone or ipad to complete the form, any laptop or desktop computer will work fine. 

You will also need to make sure you have your child's documentation (birth, immunisation, baptism certificates and any specialist reports) loaded onto your device, either by taking a photo or scanning and uploading as you will be able to upload all of that as well.

Student Medical Information

A reminder that we require all families to login to PAM and update their child's Medical Information if their child's medical details have changed. This information assists with our electronic permission forms. 

Please follow the instructions below to update a medical profile for each of your children by:

1. Click on link to PAM (found on our webpage or SZapp)
2. Click on student (if more than 1 child, this will need to be done individually)
3. Click on Medical Profile
4. Check all questions and select Edit Details for updates to be made.
5. Once you get to the end of the questions please confirm by clicking on the Green “Update Details” Box found at the bottom right of screen.

As a parent/guardian you are able to access your child/rens medical profile on PAM at any time to update as needed.  If you have any queries or require your PAM login details, please do not hesitate to get in contact with the office.  

School Emergency Contacts

Please notify the school by phone or by using the Update Contact Details in our SZApp if you have any updates to home address, contact phone numbers and email addresses. Parents are encouraged to have two alternate contacts for their child in the event that parents cannot be contacted.

Be aware that email addresses are used in several of our systems and we need to change each of these manually.

SZapp (Schoolzine)

Please note that there have been some recent changes/updates to this app which have resulted in some parents experiencing difficulties using it.   There is a glitch in the app when users have increased the font / text size of the device. The provider is aware and it should be fixed in the next app update due next week. However in the meantime please follow the steps below and it should fix the issue.

 Go into Settings on your iPhone:

• Select Display & Brightness
• Click on Text Size
• Adjust text size bar to middle
• Open SZapp and enter passcode. 3675
• Click subscribe and follow prompts

For your reference, should SZapp ever ask for the school login it is 3675.

Professional Development Day - ReLATE with Mackillop Family Services

A few Fridays ago on the 5th of May, the students were lucky enough to have an EXTRA long weekend while most of the staff still came into school! Mackillop Family Services ran a professional development day for both St Pius X and St John’s, focusing on Disability and Inclusion. We unpacked different strategies that we can implement at our school to ensure everyone in our school community is included as well as how we can best support those with a disability. The day gave us some time to reflect on our practice and highlight improvement areas at our school. A big thank you to our facilitator Megan, who shared an amazing amount of knowledge and skills!

Coast FM Superstars

On Thursday, a small group of grade 3/4 students were invited down to Coast FM to be a part of the new ‘Healthy Moves’ advertising campaign on the radio. Ellanie, Aiden, Ashlee and Savannah did an amazing job at the studio and were rewarded for their hard work with a brand new drink bottle! Keep a listen out for our very own stars during school pick up and drop off times, reminding all drivers to slow down to 40 kms in a school zone to help keep our kids safe! 

Mini Vinnies

On Wednesday the Mini Vinnies crew went to our local Warrnambool Vinnies store to discover more about how they assist people in our community.  We learnt that ...

* as a result of the rising cost of living there has been an increase in the number of people in need of things like food, blankets and clothes etc. 

* that there are about 40 people who work there and most of them are volunteers and

* that all donations are welcome in the store. There are no longer bins.

Andrew the manager took us on a tour of the store to see how everything is sorted.  Then we went out to the work area where we saw someone fixing jewellery.  We also heard about how the toys are mended and cleaned before being put back on the shelves and we saw where the truck comes in to collect rags for places like Dubai. Finally we had time to have a look at the toys and DVD's for sale.   A big thank you Mr Nolan and Ms Atkins for joining us on this visit.  Thank you also to Andrew and the Vinnies volunteers for welcoming us so warmly into their store and for taking such good care of the people in need in our community.

Hot off the Prep Press!

Flagstaff Hill Excursion

On Wednesday we went on our first bus ride to Flagstaff Hill to learn about how things were in the olden days. We were lucky enough to be shown around by Jan and Pat who are experts about the olden days. We looked in the museum and seen the big peacock that survived the Loch Ard shipwreck. After that we experienced how school would have been in the olden days, it was so different! We weren’t allowed to talk, boys and girls were separated and we had to use slate and stone to write ‘curvy’ letters. We dressed up in olden day clothes and listened to our teacher, Mam. Then we walked to Lake Pertobe to stretch our legs and enjoy the sunshine before returning to school. We had a great day and are so grateful that our school has changed lots since the olden days.

50 Days of School

On Tuesday we celebrated our 50th Day of School! Hasn’t that gone quick! We know that we are definitely 50 days smarter and have learnt so many things since the beginning of the year. Some of the things we have learnt are our letter names and sounds, how to write our numbers, how to write our name using an uppercase letter, following our learning, happiness and safety norms, cutting skills and the list goes on. Imagine how smart we will be by our 100th Day at School - we can’t wait for that!

Special Show and Tell

This week for Show and Tell we would love the students to bring in their favourite pictures storybook to share. Over the next few weeks we will be learning all about different stories and sacred stories. Ms Lane’s favourite storybook is Olivia and Ms Osborne’s favourite one is Wombat Stew. We can’t wait to share them together tomorrow. 

Healthy Moves Walk to School!

As the weather is starting to turn a little sour, it can be super difficult to walk, ride or scoot to school BUT there have been some amazing students still coming to school by walking, riding or scooting! So over the next 4 weeks, for anyone that has walked, rode or scooted to school, they will go into the running to win a prize! Winners will be announced each Friday at the lunchtime assemblies! Keep moving!

Australian Dental Health Visit

The Australian Dental Health van will be visiting St. Pius X the week beginning 17th July.   This is a  program funded by the Australian Dental Health and Child Dental Benefits schedule where  students can receive a full check up, preventative and general dental care at school.   Medicare covers these costs for eligible students via bulk billing, however if your child is not eligible, the ADHV will still do a free dental health screen.  If your child needs further treatment, you will be called for consent.   Forms will be sent home either today or tomorrow and if you would like your child to participate, could you please return the completed forms to school as soon as possible.

Country Buses

A message from the country bus co-ordinator.....................

A reminder that only students that are registered to travel on specific country buses can use this service; the service is not to be used for sports training/work/social purposes. Parent/Carers are to make their own arrangements in this regard.

If you have any queries on this, please contact Jill Burgess at Brauer on 55 60 3888.

Are you wearing the correct winter school uniform?

A friendly reminder that sports uniform is to only be worn on sports days. 

The following items are part of the uniform and can be purchased from school. 

• burgundy windcheater (with logo)  
• navy tunic or navy gabardine pants/shorts
• white polo top (with logo) or white skivvy  
• navy tights or navy socks  
• black shoes  
  

Parents and Friends Raffle

The PnF have secured a very generous donation from Rafferty's- so we're having a bonus raffle this term.   Tickets can be bought at the office. 

Footy Tipping 2023

Another very successful round by our tippers.  The round average was 8! Gold star! Well done to Alfie Parkinson for tipping 8 and playing a joker. No doubt he is studying the form hard to try and beat Letty! Dyl go tigers and Brooke7858 also managed to tip 8.

Well done to our top 5. All with varied use of the joker, so they shouldn't get too comfortable! 

1.  Debra Redpath
2. Seurens
3. Richo800
4. Letty Parkinson
5. Darren Edge 

The battle within the battle - Dad and I are tied but I've only used one joker, so I think that means I'm winning! How are you going against your friends and family?

A special message........

Wishing the following students a very Happy Birthday in the coming week...................

Patrick Cain, Victoria Balash and Maddy McKenzie.

Class Awards

Canteen Roster

Tuesday, 23rd May - Lauren Johnson

Wednesday, 24th May- Leonie Neale

Thursday, 25th May - Bec Stebbins

Friday, 26th May - Jane Kelly

Important Dates

Monday 22nd May: Catholic Education Week begins - School Mass at 10am

Wednesday 24th May: Prep excursion to Frozen the Musical (Emmanuel College)

Thursday 25th May: Enrolment Tours 10am and 6.30pm

Friday 26th May: Enrolment Tour 10am

Friday 26th May: Year 6 Network Excursion to Frozen the Musical

Friday 2nd June:  P&F Movie Night

Advance notice: Term 4 closure date Friday November 3rd 

Second Hand Uniforms

Families seeking low cost uniform items are welcome to contact Angela Verspay (mum to Dylan and Finn) who has stock of many donated uniform items. Ph: 0477660119.

Before & After School Care

Parish Contact

Sunday Mass 10.00 @ St Pius X Church. School families are always welcome.

The Parish office can be contacted on 5562 2231

Other information and contact details can be found on the Star of the Sea South West Coast website: https://www.ballarat.catholic.org.au/parish/southwestcoast/ 

FOR SALE!     Personalised Zooper Dooper holders made by William Carey.   They are $5.00 each and come in a range of colours.  Please phone Jodie on 0459 115 004 for more information.

COVID 19 Arrangements

All famililes are asked to familiarise thesmselves with the updated COVID 19 regulations.